A non-breeder's journey into the unknown

My whole life I’ve had a traditional type bed – mattress, boxspring on the typical frame that comes with it when you buy a mattress set. (The only thing missing in my adult years was a headboard). But during my pregnancy, I was miserable. I couldn’t get in or out of it easily. I couldn’t use it to sit on when getting dressed and to top it off, our poor geriatric kitty could no longer get up on it. I was getting a serious case of the cranky pants sleeping on it. We happened to be at Ikea picking up the furniture for the Bot’s room when we noticed this sweet bed. It was low, like awesomely low with slats instead of boxprings and it had a headboard. (Win!) We decided to buy it and OMG it has been the best bed I’ve ever slept in. My back immediately felt better. I could actually get up without struggling like before. I could sit with minimal difficulty. Our frail kitty can get up on the bed to curl up with me. I swear I love this bed.

Now, saying that, before we had the Bot, I had planned on her sleeping in her crib from the start. Yeah, I should have known better. The first night home we set up the hand-me-down pack-n-play in our bedroom and attempted to let her sleep in that. I think I made it through 2 night feedings before I gave in and put her in our bed. And thus started my complete and utter lack of sleep.

The Sniglar

See, our bed is just a queen and in no world is a queen-sized bed big enough for 3 cats, 2 adults and 1 newborn baby. We looked at co-sleepers and couldn’t find anything that worked because our bed was now too low to the ground. We attempted to use these foam rails but they ended up just taking up more room. We needed a co-sleeper badly and finally decided if we can’t find one, build one. But hey, if you can find an Ikea product to hack into one… even better! And that’s just what I did.